THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE PRESIDENT

THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE PRESIDENT; Bush Team Bolsters Drive To Define Its Opponent

Published: July 9, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 8—
President Bush's re-election campaign stepped up its effort Thursday to portray Senator John Kerry as out of step with the values of most voters, kicking off a new round in a drive to define him on its terms before he finishes introducing himself to the country on his.

The Bush campaign unveiled a television commercial that questions Mr. Kerry's priorities and attacks him for voting against legislation, since signed into law by the president, that makes it a separate offense to harm the fetus in a federal crime against a pregnant woman.

The Bush campaign said Mr. Kerry's vote in March against the legislation, known as the Laci Peterson law for the pregnant California woman whose husband is being tried on charges of murdering her, was part of a pattern that showed him to be the most liberal member of the Senate.

In a conference call with reporters, Nicolle Devenish, the communications director for the Bush campaign, signaled that the commercial would be the start of a concerted effort to counteract what she described as an effort by Mr. Kerry, who said last week that he represented the ''conservative values'' of rural voters, to reinvent himself.

The Bush campaign has ordered $8 million of television time over the next two weeks in swing states and on national cable networks, a barrage intended to put Mr. Kerry on the defensive as he heads toward the Democratic National Convention at the end of this month with his new running mate, Senator John Edwards.

''John Kerry began this process as the duckling of the far left and hopes to emerge at his convention as the swan of the heartland,'' Ms. Devenish said. ''Only the truth about his record will prevent this phony makeover of the nation's most out-of-the-mainstream senator.''

Mr. Kerry's campaign shot back with a statement rebutting the commercial, and said the senator had a record, dating from his days as a county prosecutor, of helping protect women from violent crime.

''This ad illustrates the kind of negative, misleading and pessimistic campaign the Bush-Cheney team is running,'' said Chad Clanton, a spokesman for the Kerry organization. ''They've got no record to run on, no positive vision for the future, so they attack.''

The back and forth reflected a broader battle between the two tickets over which has the right to claim that it reflects the moral and social values of the electorate.

For weeks, Mr. Kerry has been invoking ''values'' in an effort to offset Republican efforts to paint him as too liberal. He and Mr. Edwards have amplified that strategy as they begin to stump the country together.

Mr. Kerry and Mr. Edwards did not mention the Republican commercial directly at a rally Thursday morning in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but they did continue to hammer the values theme, broadening it to encompass not just issues but also character.

''This campaign, our campaign -- more importantly, your campaign -- is going to be a celebration of American values,'' Mr. Edwards told the crowd that welcomed him and Mr. Kerry at the airport, suggesting that ''if any Americans have any doubt about the strength and backbone of this man,'' they should consult the people Mr. Kerry served alongside in Vietnam.

The Bush commercial says Mr. Kerry has missed two-thirds of Senate votes since he started campaigning for the presidency at the beginning of last year.

''Yet Kerry found time to vote against the Laci Peterson law that protects pregnant women from violence,'' it says. ''Kerry has his priorities. Are they yours?''

Because the law treats the fetus as a separate person, its opponents have described it as an effort to roll back abortion rights.

Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, said the Bush campaign was ''engaged in a race for who gets to define Kerry, and the window for that is closing down'' as the Democratic convention approaches, bringing with it Mr. Kerry's first real national platform for presenting himself to the voters.